Time Warner Cable lets customers take TV on the road

Time Warner Cable subscribers can now take a lot of their television lineup with them on the road.

The cable company, which has more than 2 million subscribers in Southern California, is now offering its customers the ability to access content from popular cable channels such as MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon via Apple’s tablet devices and mobile phones.

The agreement is unique because it will allow Time Warner Cable subscribers to view content even if they are not in an area serviced by the cable company. For example, if a family in Los Angeles goes to Washington, D.C., they can still use Time Warner Cable for video-on-demand content.

Besides video-on-demand content, Time Warner Cable is also starting to stream live feeds of a handful of cable channels including sports outlets such as Pac-12 and the Big 10 Network.

However, some of the largest programmers still don’t have agreements in place with Time Warner Cable, including Walt Disney Co., parent of ESPN, ABC Family and the Disney Channel. Also not available are channels owned by Turner, including TNT, TBS and CNN, or Comcast Corp., parent of USA, MSNBC, Bravo and several other popular channels.

Local broadcast TV stations are also not part of Time Warner Cable’s offering, in part because copyright issues make it more challenging for a local TV station to be distributed outside its own market.

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Follow Joe Flint on Twitter @JBFlint.

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